In My Time of Dyin'
by salmonellafitzgerald
Summary: The Greene sisters face their demons to find and rescue their missing brother. Daryl Dixon has fought for years to save his brother's troubled soul, but in the end we all have debts to pay. The price for survival is high and the devil always takes his cut. AU
1. Chapter 1

IN MY TIME OF DYIN'

Chapter I: Walking Blues

A slamming car door interrupted the silence that had fallen on the desolate neighborhood. Even the stray cats and dogs had suspended their visceral calls in anticipation of the storm to come. Although the tension was palpable, a tiny figure made it's way up the concrete porch steps to stand in front of a rickety door. The paint had long since peeled away any color that had once graced it's exterior. The wind surged around the house, leading her to believe that the silence had all been in her head. The sounds of animals in the dumpster returned to her as she raised her hand to knock on the rotten wood that served as an entrance into hell itself.

Six weeks. It had been six weeks since anyone had heard from their brother. Going to the police had proved to be fruitless, as had pinning flyers up on lampposts and placing them on car windows. No amount of prayer had brought him home. It was as if he had dissolved into the earth. A shudder ran through her. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Although the police had been reassuring, their attitudes reflected the truth. They were more than likely searching for a body. Their search had been delayed once, only briefly, after their father had died. Knowing that their brother hadn't heard about the accident goaded them into looking harder. Scouring the places that they had been too afraid to search at first.

Her brother was a junky. Recovering. There is no such thing as a recovered junky. That's what he had told her. You always struggled with the thirst, the need. Every day was an uphill battle to hold onto sobriety. The death of their mother had tested them all. Each one had failed in their own way. Shawn began using, their father started drinking again, Beth had tried to kill herself and Maggie had spiraled into an oblivion of sex and disillusion. Apparently everyone in the Greene family was prone to self destruction. Now they were all recovering in their own way. Except their father. Daddy was dead and Shawn didn't know.

The darkness moved fast. Although it was still the afternoon, the shifting clouds had blotted out the sun. She glanced over at the car one more time, but Maggie was looking down at her phone and did not meet her gaze. They had been going into these places together since they figured there would be safety in numbers. At this point, they had been to so many and all with very little incident, that it now seemed redundant for them to go in together. She rapped on the door just before the first clap of thunder rang out. She knocked one more time for good measure. When nobody answered, she turned the doorknob. As she suspected, it gave easily. She swung the door open and stepped timidly inside.

The smell. She would never forget the way this place smelled. Vomit, urine, blood and something else too vile to imagine. She was convinced that it could raise the dead. She was rooted in the doorway, surveying the filth around her. She picked the collar of her cotton shirt up and placed it over her nose. Wading carefully through the refuse of broken pipes, needles and food garbage, she quietly passed a couple sleeping on a dirty worn out sofa. It's pink petals and aqua swirls had seen their peak in the 70's. She could already tell that neither body belonged to her brother. To her left, she noticed scribbles on the wall. Someone had drawn an eye, over and over again. She followed the path of the eye and it led her from one room and into another. It was like an ominous, all knowing, guide in the darkness. Through a partially busted window, she could hear and see that the rain had started to bare down on the parched, grassless front yard. Strikes of lightening illuminated the room, making it seem even more eerie and menacing.

She passed quietly through the living room and into what seemed to be a place for a small dining room. There was no table, only blankets and a few bodies strewn across the floor. Nothing but the bugs were moving. She could hear the flies droning nearby. She walked quietly to each blanketed body and gently shifted them until she knew definitively that none of these people were her brother. As she was walking away, she heard a quiet moan. Stopping suddenly, she felt a light pressure on her ankle. Squealing, she jumped clear of the grasping fingers.

A large man was lying curled up on the floor. His dirty wife-beater was stained with blood and snot. She quickly surveyed his body. His eyes were black and swollen. They were crusted and scabbed over from lack of care and activity. She dropped to her knees next to his arm and placed her fingers gingerly against his neck, both searching and praying for a pulse. It was faint, but steady. Pulling out her phone, she quickly text her sister and slid the phone back into her pocket. She leaned over to shake him gently. Her ministrations were ignored. He wasn't lucid enough to respond.

She could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest. Vulnerable and exposed. She was not confident that the man's attacker was not still in the house. The guy had been seriously worked over and more than likely just left on the floor to die, but she could not be entirely sure. She needed to finish searching the house over for Shawn and then get out. She shoved herself up and onto her feet. With one more glance downward, she willed her legs to propel her forward and guide her safely through the rest of purgatory. The air outside had cooled the house substantially, but the heat inside was still stifling. Beth could not guess how long the place had been without circulating air. She could feel the sweat dripping into her eyes as she moved silently through the kitchen and towards the back rooms. She found more sleeping bodies, but still no Shawn.

In the back room, she could hear noises behind the door. It didn't have a knob so when she reached out her hand, the force caused the door to open. She immediately regretted her carelessness. Her eyes landed on a woman, her greasy brown hair ratted and slick, was just visible between a man's legs. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes on the ceiling. The subtle bobbing motion of her head caused Beth's cheeks to flush red with embarrassment. Before she could turn around and make her escape, the man locked eyes with her and gave her a small wink. He theatrically gripped the woman's hair in his hands and brought her head down a little harder. She could still hear soft moaning as she ran back to the body by the kitchen.

Maggie was already standing over him with a skeptical look on her face.

"God Beth, he smells dead." Maggie pulled her shirt over her nose in a direct mirror to her sister's earlier actions.

"He's not, I checked for a pulse." Beth dipped back down on her knees beside the body and gently shook him once more. Her movements elicited a slight groan, but nothing more.

"We need to call the police, let them get him to a hospital." Maggie started to pull her phone out of her back pocket.

"No! we can't. Look at him. They are just gonna let the nurses clean him up and then they will take him to jail. It isn't going to do him any good being locked up and besides. What if he knows something about Shawn. If we basically send him to jail, he wont trust us enough to talk. Let's take him home. Clean him up."

"He's not a stray." Her sister countered, giving her a look of both pity and annoyance. "We can't just take him home. He's a stranger and we definitely aren't equipped to deal with his withdrawals. There is no telling what he's on or what else he needs to be treated for. It just isn't gonna work."

Beth stood up and stubbornly wrapped her arms around her torso, a defense mechanism learned in her younger years. "We're taking him. Daddy would have." She set her eyes squarely on her sister.

Maggie shook her head and Beth knew that she had won this one. Together they maneuvered the man into a position where they could both sling one of his heavy arms across their shoulders. The man was a slab of muscle and they soon realized that there was no way they were going to be able to stand him up and carry him out. Instead, they each grabbed a large boot clad foot and began to drag him. It was slow going because they also had to shift garbage out of their path. The black scribbled eye watched them drag their unconscious load through each room. Tracking their progress. The rain outside had picked up and the wind was howling miserably. It was as if the house knew that they were trying to steal back a soul from it's devilish clutches. The thunder cracked loudly. After getting the man into the living room by the door, Maggie quickly ran to the car. She drove it up over the curb and brought it as close to the raggedly covered porch as she possibly could.

Beth had managed to find a blanket that nobody was using. It was stiff and had dried into a position that looked something like a japanese fan. By the time her sister had parked the car, Beth had managed to work it into something that resembled a blanket. She figured it could save the man's skin from being scraped up on the concrete porch steps. She tossed it out and her sister resumed her position. They both grunted as they drug the heavy body out onto the porch and slid it across the dirty blanket. Together they managed to put the man in the back seat, leaving the nasty, crusted blanket behind for the denizens of the crack den to reclaim.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Authors Note: I am currently reading a fanfiction by MonDieu666 called Spiced Molasses. It inspired my Daryl just a tad. **_

Chapter II: Ramblin' Blues

"Stop running or I'm gonna stomp your ass!"

Daryl's feet splashed down in tepid, stagnant puddles, his soaked jeans making it harder to lift his legs. The streetlights reflected dull half moons on the rain-washed sidewalk. He tightened his grip on his crossbow and aptly darted into an alleyway, expertly dodging the garbage strewn in his path. He'd already jumped two chain link fences and could feel his chest tighten uncomfortably. Probably time to give up smoking. The noise of his booted feet hitting the ground was muted by a distant car alarm.

For the last 20 minutes, he'd been trying to chase down his rat. He cut left down a different alley and quickened his pace. If he could just make it a little further, he could successfully choke off the kid's escape route. This little prick had given him problems from the start, one by one; all of his other informants were disappearing. Falling off the face of the earth. Now it was damn near impossible to hunt the kid down. He had finally reached the right building. He cut through the open bay doors and ran quickly towards the back and through to the other side. Blindly, he leapt from the five feet slab that served as a loading dock. The impact crumpled his legs underneath him, but he jumped quickly off of the ground and loaded a bolt into his bow. Just as he pulled the string into place, the kid came running around the corner. As he met Daryl's eyes, he jerked around to run. The small moment of hesitation was all that Daryl needed to drop him. An arrow protruded from the meaty part of his thigh.

"Ain't runnin' so fast now are ya." Daryl huffed and walked slowly over to the kid's prone figure. He placed a boot roughly on the kid's leg and tugged the bolt loose. With a squelch, it came free, ripping tendons and dragging a hunk of skin out with it. Daryl used the kid's shirt to wipe away the blood and flesh. The kid moaned as his head fell forward, cracking against the concrete. "Nah, don't you check out on me. We ain't finished here." Daryl roughly patted the kid's face and then threaded his fingers through greasy hair, lifting the kid's head off of the ground.

"People are comin' up missin' yo. I don't want no part of that shit. I ain't tellin' you nothin'." The kid muttered. Daryl's fist made contact with the kid's exposed face. The impact cracked his knuckles, separating the skin in a web of thin red lines. He jerked his arm back again.

"You'll tell me whatever the fuck I ask ya to or yer gonna get another arrow. Next one will be in the ass. How's that sound?" Daryl dropped the kid's head and patted down his pockets looking for a lighter and his cigarettes. To his profound disappointment, they had been crushed after his fall. He shifted the kid off of his front and dug through his jacket pocket.

He walked out of the alley, leaving the kid behind in a heap of limbs and blood. After pulling a cigarette out and packing it, he tossed the remaining few to a man sitting alone by a garbage can. His trashbag poncho rattled as he lifted a gray, glove clad hand in thanks.

Merle had been missing for days. Although he figured his shitheel brother had gotten fucked up and crawled into a gutter, or snatch, somewhere, his rat hadn't seen him around either. Typically he wouldn't be worried about him, he was pretty good at giving people the slip, but something wasn't setting right. Daryl looked around quickly, surveying the street, and pushed his way towards Martinez's den. Thunder cracked loudly overhead as the impending storm gathered force. The clouds moved quickly, dropping the barometric pressure and causing chills to spring up on his bare, dirt streaked arms.

He continued down the filthy street until he reached a cluster of dilapidated brick buildings. One in particular stood out. The wall around its entrance had been tagged with a gaping graffiti mouth, its red lips and yellowing teeth threatened to suck you in and swallow you whole. He examined the building's painted glass windows, small areas of peeling paint offered a glimpse into limbo. He pushed open the glass door and gave the arcade games inside a cursory but weary glance. The flashing lights and loud noises were quickly inundating his senses, crippling him. There were a couple of hoodrats playing on the machines, but most of the younger kids were in the gutter outside. They were trading smokes while their mothers were too high to give a shit. In fact, Daryl was willing to wager that one or two of those mothers were on their knees in the back office.

The arcade had been busted a few times, but they couldn't do anything except take in the dealers, which was nothing. Big guys bailed them out quick. Insurance. Even the lowlifes had insurance. God bless the American dream, he thought sarcastically. As far as he knew, the local cops still hadn't found the cellophane wrapped bricks snuggled tightly inside of the machines. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, the guys higher up were insulated, protected by crooked police and an army of douche-bags willing to take the fall for them. That's why his ass had been assigned this grid. He looked the part and his brother was heavily involved with most of the drugs and pussy filtered through this neighborhood. Daryl had managed to get his brother a deal in exchange for his services.

He had been deep under for four years with nothing substantial enough to bring down their operation. Martinez and his boys were smart and inherently distrustful. After all of his efforts, he had rumors and hearsay. He had no problem breaking into the outer circle, but working his way inside had been tough. Not tough, nearly impossible. Merle had more luck. Something about the prick attracted all the assholes within a hundred mile radius. If it was illegal or just plain immoral, Merle was probably right in the center of it.

He pushed past a couple of bruisers and opened the door without knocking. The barely audible moans ceased as Daryl walked into the room. Inside the back office, a dark headed woman was pulling up her leggings and pushing herself back into her bra. Daryl waited while one of Martinez's boys lead his whore away.

"See somethin' you like?" Martinez moved closer to the back door. "Haven't seen you in awhile, nor your brother. I hear he likes to keep to the peckerwood side of town. You see 'im though, tell 'im I'm lookin' for him. He's got a debt to pay."

"You assholes gonna take his other hand?" Daryl shifted his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. His cracked knuckles screamed in protest as they brushed against the rough flannel of his shirt, depositing fresh blood and grime.

"I don't know what you mean. I hear he lost that hand in an accident."

Daryl shook his head and walked back out. He knew he wouldn't get shit out of them. He walked around the corner from the arcade and was now facing a particularly nasty looking street. Even though the sky had darkened considerably, he could see a cop car sitting at the curb. He knew immediately that they were going to give him shit. Before he could make it to his truck, a beat cop slammed his ass into a building, roughly searching his pockets. If you were white and in this neighborhood, you were either a junky, undercover or really fucking lost. He hissed at the officer after he pried himself off of the coarse brick wall. A small gash now visible on his cheek. He could probably get away with busting the guy's ass, but he didn't feel like going toe to toe with his 'overlords' yet again. He had gotten more than an earful from them over carrying around his crossbow. After receiving a serious finger wagging and short speech about being in the wrong neighborhood, he finished his walk to the truck and drove away.

_**Authors Note: The idea for Martinez's arcade was pulled out of an ethnographic work on Spanish Harlem called In Search of Respect. It is worth the read.**_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III: Death comes a-creepin' in my room

Her body was prone to his and she could feel the tremors violently pulsing through him, causing them both to shake. She firmly held a rag over his feverish head, his heart beating wildly against her chest. He moaned out in agony, eyes still cemented shut. The storm raged and howled against the window punctuating the frenetic energy surrounding them. A trail of blood led from the door to the side of the tub. Beth could feel small tears track down her face. After what seemed like an hour, his tremors subsided and she lifted her body from his, confident that he was no longer in danger of injuring himself. She slumped against the tub, his sweat clung to her shirt, and she was briefly lost to her thoughts. This could have been Shawn. Shawn could be dying in one of those shit holes. A sob pushed its way past her dry, chapped lips.

Remorse and pain swirled around in her mind, clouding her thoughts. She glanced at the man beside her and grimaced. She began tugging at his shirt, peeling it slowly from his skin. Blood had caked into the fabric and stiffened, causing it to adhere to his clammy torso. Each time the fabric snagged, she would take a deep breath and quickly pull it away from his eviscerated flesh. Eventually, she was able to pull the shirt over his head. He was solid muscle. She had hoped to undress him with clinical disinterest, but couldn't help but allow her hands to ghost over his flat stomach and toned arms before grabbing a washcloth and cleaning him up. The bathtub filled with grime and blood quickly and she had to pause more than once to drain it and fill it back up. Outside, the cracks of thunder had started to dissipate.

His face was the most difficult part to clean. His abused eyes were crusted over. She worked the gunk free with soft circular motions. Whoever had beaten in his face had done a very thorough job. They had even worked over the rest of his body with a knife. Small, bloody, ragged lines interwove with much older scars, creating a tapestry that conveyed years of abuse and self-destruction. Some of the older scars had been so deep that long after they had healed, they still held a slightly purplish tint. It broke her heart. She leaned over to search through the drawers of the bathroom vanity for more supplies.

She used a clean cloth to dab his cuts with alcohol. When he began to groan lightly, she inclined her head towards his torso and blew softly across the puckered flesh. After getting all of the sliced flesh doctored and wrapped, she sent a leery glance towards his black cargo pants. One thought kept battering her tired brain over and over again. 'What if he wakes up with me taking off his pants?' She pushed out a breath and reached for the button. Finding it almost impossible to pop it with one hand, she reached down and started to pull at it with both hands.

Letting out an exasperated breath she released the button and looked up towards his face. To her surprise, she was greeted by a single piercing blue eye. He started to chuckle as she tumbled backwards and smashed her head into the vanity. For a moment, little black spots danced across her vision.

"Whatchu doin' there girlie?" The man cocked his head in genuine curiosity. A sinister grin graced his pale lips as he waited for her answer.

Beth knew he was toying with her and her stomach dropped to the floor. She found that she was no longer articulate enough to explain the situation as she stumbled over her words, "I'm sorry. I was just. Well, I didn't think you'd wake up."

"Well damn sugar, what kinda girl you think I am?"

Her eyes widen perceptibly as he raised his right arm off of the ground and braced it on the bathtub. "Oh god, I'll just leave you to get cleaned up. Sorry." She shuffled quickly towards the exit. Her face burning hot.

"Could always stick around. Keep ole Merle company." She could hear more laughter as she tumbled out of the bathroom, banging her arm against the doorframe in the process.

Over an hour later, Merle still hadn't graced her with his presence. However, her embarrassment had not yet been out paced by her concern. She firmly planted her feet and remained in the kitchen, trying her best to loudly bang pots and pans. Beth ran a finger softly down her wrist, gently touching her scar. The rough tissue brushing the tips of her fingers brought her back to reality.

Since her kitchenware symphony had failed to smoke him out, she sighed and walked towards the bathroom. She hesitated a moment before knocking on the door. When all that could be heard was the soft patter of rain, she gently turned the knob and pushed the door open. She was greeted with the smell of stale sweat. It took her a moment to locate Merle. He had managed to clean himself up, but then had passed out without wrapping anything around him. His head was resting against the tub and his mouth was hanging wide open. Quickly, she grabbed up a towel and dropped it over him. Red-faced, she stepped back outside and banged her forehead against the wall. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Maggie walked behind her sister, a large smirk on her face. "How's the patient, doc?"

"A pain in the butt." Her sister chuckled at her and then pouted her lips in mock sympathy, obviously pleased that Beth was having such a difficult time.

"I found a phone buried in the garbage beside him, so I flipped through the contacts. There is one labeled 'baby brother' I think we should give it a try." Maggie extended the battered phone towards her sister.

* * *

Daryl had been searching for his brother for nearly a week when he finally got a text. His mantra had always been 'nothing can kill Merle but Merle', but this time he had a terrible feeling that told him he might be searching for his brother's body. Finding out that he had been holed up with some farm girls had inflamed his ire. He had been running himself ragged and the entire time Merle was being treated to his own personal club med. When he'd got the text with the address, he realized the place was almost an hour away from the city. He loudly cussed his douche-bag brother and the whores that took him in.

As he sped down the open road, engine rumbling underneath him, he drifted into thought. Over the course of his search, He had managed to uncover some disturbing shit. His brother was distributing meth with Phillip's boys and doing it in Martinez's home range. It was no wonder they took off his hand in prison. Merle was likely treading on more than a few toes, especially playing the two sides. He assumed that his brother gained some status while serving out his last prison sentence. He had pissed on the cash cow by crossing over and lost his protection status with Martinez's boys on the inside, but he found another crowd pretty fucking fast. A two year stretch quickly became a five year sentence and afforded him a decent amount of time to feather his new nest. Merle never could control his tendency towards rage and impulsivity, but he was smart, calculating, and he instinctively knew who he could and couldn't fuck with.

When he got out, in the spirit of humor, his female judge had slapped him with a black parole officer. Being assigned to T-Dog had really rubbed some salt into the wound and to Daryl's profound amusement, Merle couldn't do shit about it. The judge, Ms. Carol Peltier, was a real honest to god ball breaker. To this day he couldn't tell you what she had said to Merle, but his brother hadn't put a toe out of line where she was concerned. Daryl smiled at the memory and grasped his steering wheel a little tighter. The woods around the road were starting to thicken.

By the time he reached the farm, the tempest had slowed to a gentle rain. He drove through the gate and looked around at his surroundings. The farm was big with lots of open land and a good size farm house, he passed a white mailbox at the road. The name Greene was stenciled on it in block-letters. When he got to the house itself, a pretty girl had already stepped out onto the covered porch. The wind whipped her golden hair around her face. She was beautiful standing on the porch barefoot. She was young. He cussed to himself. Merle was fucking jailbait. Daryl hoped she had at least made him use a condom.

In Beth's opinion, Merle's brother was terrifying. He was dirt streaked and the wind had rearranged his long hair in an almost unflattering way. His boots were caked with mud and grime that extended up onto his ripped denim jeans. He had on a plaid button-up shirt that had no sleeves. His arms were glorious, toned and browned by hours under the sun. She hadn't even realized she had been checking him out until he cleared his throat. Much to her surprise, she found him genuinely attractive, sans the sour inconvenienced expression that he was sporting.

"Hi, i'm Beth." Her full lips lifted into an easy smile. She extended her hand out to him, but he just looked at it like she was going to slap him. She drew it back and heard a chuckle behind her.

"Don't mind baby brother, he's not so good with women. Even pint-sized women." Merle limped onto the porch. He turned and grasped her hand, planting a kiss on it. Before descending the stairs, he threw her a small wink. Beth turned bright red. Her embarrassment seemed to amuse Daryl and as Merle made his grand exit, Daryl's mouth lifted into a half smile.

"You his new woman?" Daryl put his thumb to his mouth and started to chew the skin around the edges.

"What?" Beth turned her large eyes towards him, confusion etched into her brow.

Daryl's smirk deepened. Yep. She certainly seemed dumb enough to be one of Merle's women.

"Ya fuckin' 'im?" Daryl did his best to clarify. His brash statement caused Beth to glance away, but she quickly shifted her gaze back to him.

"No. Of course not. I just found him. Someone beat him up and I was just afraid to leave him." Beth blushed again as she felt the half truth tumble out of her mouth, but she wasn't ready to admit that she rescued his brother so that she could pump him for information.

"Leave 'im where?"

"I found him in a house. Just across the tracks."

"What you doin' over there, girl? You a bible thumper or somethin'? Taking the gospel to the no good white trash throw-aways?" Beth looked shocked at Daryl's very pointed statement. She hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to even answer him.

"No, I was looking for my brother, Shawn."

Daryl lifted his eyebrows. He was curious, but not enough to ask her what she meant. "Well listen kid, you don't need to be going to those places alone. Sure as shit shouldn't be bringing anyone home with ya. Surprised yer daddy didn't beat yer ass."

"My dad is dead."

Daryl felt a small stab of guilt. How the hell was he supposed to know she was on her own. Shawn Greene. The name was familiar to him, but he kept his face blank. He didn't want her to catch on to his train of thought.

"They ain't all bad people. Some are just fuck-ups, but some of 'em wouldn't hesitate to hurt ya. Leave it to the cops." He watched as her shoulders slumped. She looked so much smaller like that, curled in on herself, so he kept talking.

"Look, if you get a good lead, I'll go with you or somthin'." He had no idea what had compelled him to say it, but it was obvious she was just as surprised as he was. He began restlessly shifting from leg to leg, contemplating the distance from the porch to his truck. The very fact he was thinking about running from someone so unassuming just solidified how bad he had just fucked up. The awkwardness hadn't ended until he was safely scurrying across the yard. Merle was still laughing heartily at his expense. Flipping his brother off through the window, he jumped in and was gone.

Daryl felt an overwhelming need to go home and anoint his troubled soul with whisky. The windshield wipers were beating time as rain danced lightly across the glass. His brother had started talking the second Daryl had gotten into the car. Most, if not all, of what he was saying fell on deaf ears. Daryl gave the occasional, yet obligatory, grunt to reassure his brother that he was indeed listening to him ramble. As they got closer to the city, they passed more and more cars on the road. Shawn Greene. He chewed on the name, rolling it around in his head. If she had been looking for her brother in a crack house, he probably did recognize the name. Could have been one of his earlier busts or one of his rats. He doubted that the locals were holding him for anything, but he was going to call around regardless. Beat the bush a little.


End file.
